had sent over Israel. The drone, designed
by Iran and assembled by Hezbollah
technicians, had made it nearly to Di-
mona, a city in southern Israel that is
believed to contain that country s nuclear
facilities, before it was shot down. Nasral-
lah broke into a smile. The Israelis, he
said, were "perplexed" by Hezbollah s
ability to carry off such a sophisticated
stunt. "The Lebanese should be proud
that they have young men with such
brains!" he said. For a moment, Nasrallah
seemed his old self. Then his smile van-
ished, and he said he wanted to talk about
reports in the Lebanese press that Hez-
bollah men were fighting in support of
Assad.
The issue of Hezbollah s role inside
Syria raises fundamental questions about
its identity and purpose. Is it really a "re-
sistance" organization, dedicated only to
fighting Israel? American and Lebanese
officials say that Hezbollah fighters are in-
deed helping the Assad regime in Syria,
mainly by advising Syrian fighters. The
Hezbollah operatives are working close to
the front lines and may be fighting them-
selves, the American official said. (He
added that Iran prefers Hezbollah agents
because they speak Arabic, as do the Syr-
ian fighters.) Most Lebanese I talked to
took it for granted that Hezbollah opera-
tives were helping prop up Assad, for ob-
vious reasons of self-interest.
Siding with the Assad government has
already left Nasrallah alone in the Arab
world. In 2011, an American official told
me, he went to Damascus to try to per-
suade Khaled Meshal, the leader of
Hamas, to support the Syrian regime.
Hamas had been an ally of Assad s and,
like Hezbollah, the recipient of extensive
support from Syria and Iran. According
to the official, who had knowledge of the
meeting, Nasrallah reminded Meshal of
their obligation to the Iranian govern-
ment and pressed him to back Assad.
Meshal refused, and shortly thereafter
broke publicly with Syria.
In Nasrallah s televised speech, he
mentioned Lebanese news reports of secret
Hezbollah funerals for fighters killed
there; he spoke of one report saying that
seventy-five of his fighters had been killed
in a Syrian village called Ribleh. And he
mentioned the Free Syrian Army s claim
that a Hezbollah commander had been
killed inside Syria. Nasrallah spoke glow-
ingly of the dead: "Dear, chaste holy mar-
tyrs!" Then he denied it all. The reports
were cooked up by enemies, he said. A
number of Hezbollah fighters had been
killed, but they were actually Lebanese
along the Syrian border, who had come
under unprovoked attacks from the reb-
els. "This has nothing to do with fighting
alongside the government," he said. "This
is truly what took place."
The explanation seemed tortured,
even ridiculous, but Nasrallah went on,
his eyes narrowing and his mouth tight-
ening. He said that the Lebanese govern-
ment would not know how to protect its
citizens. "What shall we do?" he said. "O
our state, our government, our Lebanese
parties, our political leaders, and our po-
litical and religious authorities!" By the
time he brought his speech to an end,
every trace of his boyish charm had de-
parted. "Finally, I will say, Let no one
bully us. Let no one try us."
Afew days later, I drove to the town of
Arsal, on the Syrian border. As I ap-
proached, the civil war came into full
view: a fight was on for possession of a
border post held by the Syrian govern-
ment. A Syrian gunship circled overhead.
Explosions thundered in the distance.
The Masharia mosque, a half mile in-
side Lebanon, had Hezbollah flags flying,
and an ambulance parked outside. Syrian
refugees in Arsal told me that Hezbollah
members were making regular trips across
the border. "They pick up their wounded
and bring them back here," one refugee,
who was camped nearby with his family,
told me.
Not far from the scene of the battle, I
met a mid-level commander in the Free
Syrian Army, whose nom de guerre is
Abu Bakr. He looked exhausted from
months of fighting inside Syria, but his
beard was neatly trimmed. Over coffee at
his home in Arsal, Abu Bakr told me that
he was a Lebanese Sunni---not a Syrian
citizen. He was fighting out of solidarity
with his fellow-Sunnis, who were resist-
ing the Assad regime across the border.
He said he felt confident that the rebels
would prevail, but that the fighting he d
been in was horrendous. "They are being
slaughtered," he said of the rebels.
Abu Bakr understood Hezbollah op-
eratives to be playing a significant role in
helping the Assad regime, especially in
training the shabiha, Assad s brutal mili-
tia. He said that he had interrogated Hez-
bollah prisoners who were captured in-
side Syria, and that he had regularly
tracked fighters as they crossed from Leb-
anon. A week before we spoke, comrades
in Lebanon had radioed ahead that a Hez-
"Miss Perkins, I need more lumbar support."